Friends Groups & Volunteers

Course Summary

When it comes to fundraising, why do your Friends Group and your volunteers matter?

'The Friends of Lancashire Archives has supported us for 30 years, with fundraising for document purchase, cataloguing, indexing and outreach projects amounting to around £200,000. In today's economic climate they are our lifeline.' (Jacquie Crosby, Lancashire Archives)

This course will show you how to unlock more funding through your existing resources. A friends group and volunteers can dedicate the time that you lack to generating a regular income. They can devote their activity to specific fundraising tasks and also act as ambassadors for your archive.

Aim

Participants have increased confidence and skills to engage Friends groups and volunteers in undertaking and supporting fundraising activity for their service.

Learning Objectives

The course will enable participants to

- Understand how to develop a shared fundraising goal with a Friends group
- Understand ways of fundraising from (donations, membership fees) and with (appeals, events, matching funder grants) Friends groups
- Understand how to utilise Friends and Volunteer networks and as ambassadors to support fundraising
- Understand how to run a fundraising event with Friends and Volunteers

Summary of content

- Developing a shared fundraising vision with your Friends group, identifying mutual benefits – value of a Funding Policy for a Friends group
- Including Friends in fundraising strategy / sub-group creation and liaison
- Fundraising from Friends (membership fees, annual donation, events), fundraising with them (Friends appeals, Friends support for campaigns). Running their own fundraising events to support the service (inc. marketing messages, protecting the service 'brand')
- Utilising their networks to promote fundraising campaigns and/or access potential donors

This course is aimed at those working within archive organisations on how to best work with and manage relationships with friends groups and volunteers. Please note this course is not open to Friends Group members or volunteers themselves.